NHER 42093 (Monument record) - Post medieval drainage ditches

September 2005. Norfolk NMP.
A group of drainage ditches are visible as both earthworks and soilmarks on aerial photographs, within the Brograve Levels, Sea Palling (S1 to S3). The site is centred on TG 4429 2440. Some of these boundaries are marked on the 1840 Waxham Tithe map (S4), although the layout visible on the aerial photographs reveals greater complexity and presumably additional divisions that have been removed prior to 1840, such as the small enclosed area, centred on TG 4421 2473. These drains are adjacent to the medieval peat extraction and post medieval decoy (NHER 42091) and at least one of the drains appears to cut through the silted and drained pond. This indicates that the drains in this area are significantly later than the decoy. To the east, at TG 4447 2443, is a double ditched drainage channel that is on a slightly different alignment to the main layout. It seems likely that this represents an earlier phase of drainage and enclosure of the Waxham marshes and has been recorded as part of NHER 43704, a group of drains to the east, which share a similar alignment.
S. Massey (NMP), 31 September 2005.